Comet Images from the South African Astronomical Observatory

This is being posted on behalf of the people at SAAO - you can contact
them direct via email using the following email address:

lab@saao.ac.za

where it'll be handled by Luis Balona.

IMAGES OF COMET IMPACTS ON JUPITER, JULY 16-22, 1994

On the evening of July 16 (South African time), the first of the 21 major
fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 will strike the planet Jupiter at more
than 200000 km/hr. Although there is good evidence that this has happened
before, this is the first time that such an event has been predicted in
advance and given astronomers a chance to watch.

As with other observatories around the globe, the South African Astronomical
Observatory (SAAO) is making a considerable effort to observe Jupiter and its
environment during the period (July 16-22) when the 21 major fragments of
Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 are scheduled to strike. Seven fragments will strike
while Jupiter is above the horizon in a dark sky as seen from South Africa:
fragments A, H, L, Q2, Q1, T, and U. As of 10 July the predicted times were:

A 16 July 21:58 small
H 18 July 21:26 large
L 20 July 00:07 large
Q2 20 July 21:32 medium
Q1 20 July 21:59 largest
T 21 July 20:06 small
U 21 July 23:53 small

All times are South African Standard Time (2 hours later than UTC).

WHAT KIND OF IMAGES WILL BE AVAILABLE?

Images obtained at SAAO using the 1.0-m telescope and optical CCD (Matt Senay,
University of Hawaii, methane and sodium filters -- comet fragments approaching
Jupiter, Jupiter after impact, fireball plumes, if any, extending beyond the
edge of Jupiter itself) and the 0.75 m telescope with PtSi infrared camera
(Kaz Sekiguchi, SAAO, infrared images of Jupiter and moons) will be available
in GIF format.

ACCESS TO SAAO IMAGES

Images will be accessible by anonymous ftp at the following Internet addresses:

In /pub/saao at either address are two subdirectories. The subdirectory
"images" will have infrared and optical comet/Jupiter images obtained
at SAAO. These should begin to appear within 1-2 hours of each impact
time, if all goes as planned. All images will be in GIF format. Text
files will describe each image. Information on detection of fireballs
in the infrared and at optical wavelengths may also appear.

The subdirectory "other" contains pre-impact comet images from other
observatories, artists impressions, information about the comet impacts,
and a wide variety of text files, software, etc related to the Comet and
Jupiter. All images are in GIF, JPG or MPEG format. Suitable players
for all formats are available for MS-DOS machines.